The new Watford boss Marco Silva seems to have had a very good impact since his arrival and his team now sits just one point behind Arsenal in the table. The Portugese coach is used to being successful with his attacking approach and he has vowed to continue that philosophy against the Gunners today. “If you like to play to win, if you have one clear idea for the players, I cannot change this idea in one week because I will play against Arsenal, or I will play against Chelsea or City,” Silva said.
“You can change sometimes the strategy for the match. You can play in different systems like we did against Swansea: we played 4-3-3 and then with five at the back. What we can change is our strategy for the match, in some moments our formation as well. We can change many, many things. But our idea, our style of play, is impossible to change.”
“This is my idea, since the first day when I passed the idea to my team and my players,”
“I tried to put into them a big ambition, even in our style of play. That is what I tried to do since my first day as a coach.”
“I don’t need to need to convince them,”
“How I saw my players working every day, I don’t need to convince them of anything.”
It remains to be seen whether this approach will work against Arsenal, especially after they stuck to their attacking game against Man City and ended up getting steam-rollered 6-0. Arsenal may be wary to start with after failing to win any away games so far, but if they have regained half of their own attacking confidence we could be in for a very exciting game….
Darren N
Good if he keeps his promise to attack. Arsenal could hit them from a fast counterattack, because the 3-4-2-1 would be very ideal for punishing attacking minded teams, since we would have five defenders in the back.
If Watford change their mind and switch to defensive mode, Arsenal would have to rely on Sanchez’s creativity and the other attackers’ work rate. Watford’s four defender formation would be prone to mistakes if Arsenal’s attackers pressurize them.